What is the Federal Reserve doing about college grade inflation?

We sometimes talk about inflation and it is, most of the time, about money.  How about this... In the first half of the 1960s 15% of college grades were As. Today, 43% of all college grades are As. An A is the most common grade given in colleges across America.

73% of all college grades given today are As or Bs.

All I want to know is...I would like to think it is because our college students are so much smarter than we were 50 years ago...but then again I could be wrong.

How do these grades break down by subject?  Here are just a few bits of data....In math only 29% of the grades given are As, in music 67%, and in education 71% are As. I guess that we can see what field of study the really smart folks go into......

The average GPA in public schools has gone up from 2.85 to 3.01, and in private colleges from 3.09 to 3.30. Wow...I had a GPA of 3.2 back in the 70's and that is equivalent to a 3.5 now. I could have been so much smarter if I just waited a few decades to attend college.

Texas is now considering a law called the Honest Transcript bill which will require public colleges to report the average grade given to the entire class next to the grade on the student's transcript. I wonder if that will do any good in getting a new graduate a job?

Check out this suggestion for separating the credentialing process of college from the education component over at Value of College.  This is a concrete way to stop grade inflation and more importantly measure how well we are doing at the fundamental role of education at our colleges and universities.  

Jerry

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